Best time of day

The best time of day for analytical work.

Analytical covers logic, numbers, data and decisions that need reasoning: financial models, data analysis, debugging a hard problem, legal or contract review.

Working memory and sustained attention rise after the first hours of the day and fade in the late afternoon for most people; the timing shifts with chronotype.

By chronotype

Morning type

strongest 6am to 11pm
6am10am2pm6pm10pm

Neither strongly

strongest 6am to 11pm
6am10am2pm6pm10pm

Evening type

strongest 6am to 11pm
6am10am2pm6pm10pm

Model output for a neutral energy level and eight hours of sleep, from the baseline and chronotype tables on Sources. Timing effects are real but not universal; a person's own check-ins move these curves.

How to use this

  1. Find your chronotype above. If you wake easily before 7 and fade by 9pm, read the morning row; if the reverse, the evening row.
  2. Put your hardest analytical work in the strongest range and protect it: no meetings, no inbox.
  3. Put routine work in the weak hours. It does not need your peak.
  4. Keep the same slot for a week, then judge by output, not by how it felt on day one.

Or let the schedule do it.

My Calendy maps your own curve from four answers, breaks a project into tasks, and places each one at the hour your brain is best at that kind of work, around your calendar. When a block slips, it re-plans. 7 days free, no card.

Other kinds of work